


Mortal Nonsense

by always_a_birthday_girl



Series: (thoughts at the end of the world) [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fix-It of Sorts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Perilous Situations, Post-Episode: s15e01 Back and to the Future, Running Away, and, but with
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21560044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/always_a_birthday_girl/pseuds/always_a_birthday_girl
Summary: Dean had said, "I never get used to it. The peace. I know it ain't gonna last."And Cas had wanted to say, "Of course it doesn't, because you're a hurricane in a plaid shirt and I wouldn't love you half as much if you weren't," but he chickened out and said something pithy and unromantic instead and he still thought about that.In which the world ends but some things are too stubborn to die.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: (thoughts at the end of the world) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1549954
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

There had been a case, once—Sam had hit his head pretty badly on a slab of concrete, and while Dean went ahead to chase the ghoul, Cas had stayed behind with the dazed hunter. He'd asked questions, and while Sam had seemed to hear him, there had been no coherent response. He'd been present, but not functioning.

Cas was like that now, following Dean and Sam through the ruins, watching them work to escape. He was aware of what they were doing. But even though he could count every molecule of dust in the room and was certain the stench of sulfur would stay with him through eternity, he couldn't  _function_ . The world had ended with Jack, right? What were they still fighting for?

This was not grief. He'd felt grief. Grief ripped and tore and destroyed, it was a wet, pulsating, living organism that sucked his throbbing heart dry like a leech on an open wound. And this was not that. This was the glazed look in Sam Winchester's eyes and the paralyzing sensation of Lucifer taking over Cas's vessel; this was what he felt when he could feel nothing else, when his mind had realized the breadth of the damage and flipped his panic switch, killing all emotion.

"Cas, a little help?" Dean snapped, his fury naked and obscene in the face of Cas's current numbness. He was trying to bash his way out of the crypt with a crowbar. Or maybe it was a poker. Cas hadn't been paying attention.

In another life, Cas would have already been there, his shoulder bumping Dean's as they swung in unison, his heel knocking against Sam's calf in their shared haste. Their survival would have been his; he wouldn't have dreamed of life without them. But now—now the thought flitted across his mind that maybe he could be rid of this terrible burden—

And he saw it, the moment Dean guessed his thoughts, the realization crashing over the hunter's face that yes, they were broken. This was not a feud they would just  _leave behind_ , as they'd cast off so many others. The list of things they'd forgiven each other for was longer than the line of spirits fighting to get inside the crypt, but Cas could feel it crumbling to dust between them at that split-second hesitation.

It was over. Not just the world; things far more important than that. Cas turned away, and he kept turning away, because it was the end of everything and he couldn't bear to look.

If anyone had ever asked Cas—and fortunately, no one had—Sam Winchester was the better brother. It had never made sense to him that Sam had been slated for the Devil while Dean got to be on the side of the angels, but as things had played out, he realized the mismatch was nothing more than another of God's little ironies.

_The wrong brother dies,_ he thought absently, thumbing the wound left on Sam's shoulder. Sam had shot God. For Jack. For all of them, but mostly for Jack. And Cas would always, no matter what happened next, love him for that.

"I'm sorry," Sam murmured, while Cas tried to heal something they both knew full well couldn't be healed. "I screwed everything up. Again."

"Hush." Cas pulled Sam's shirt back in place, doing up the buttons to avoid meeting the hunter's gaze. "You've been fighting your nature for years, Sam, it's only human to become tired."

"My nature?"

"Mm." He finished with the buttons, brushed off Sam's shirt, and stepped back. "You were raised to follow orders. I understand. It's a superhuman feat, to continue to defy a force of nature, and after everything that happened . . . truly, Sam. I understand."

Sam's mouth was a tight line, when Cas finally gathered the courage to look at his face. He was clearly in pain, and clearly trying to hide it. He would pretend everything was fine in front of Dean, of course. Their patterns were so predictable.

Cas was tired, too.

"You think my brother is a force of nature?" Sam asked.

Cas arched an eyebrow, coming close to  _feeling_ for the first time since Jack hit the ground. "You don't?"

There was a demon in Jack's body.

There was a demon in Jack's body and Dean was  _okay_ with it. Even after death, even when Jack could no longer hurt him, Dean still was throwing him away. Acting like he'd never loved the kid—unless that, the role of the caring father, had been the true act. Unless this entire time Dean had been looking for a reason to cast Jack aside. 

Cas was so horribly afraid it was true, he didn't dare examine it closely. Because how could he have missed something that important? He knew Dean. He'd known Dean since that cold dawn in Hell, known him so intimately that sometimes he knew what Dean was going to do before the hunter himself had decided. He'd counted on Dean's need to parent anything halfway Samlike, and maybe—maybe Cas's faith had been what got Jack killed.

It was too terrible to consider. His heart cracked when his mind brushed up against it, and he shied away before he shattered. They were in the middle of a crisis. He couldn't afford to fall apart.

Sam pulled him aside later, in the second or third quiet moment they had, his hazel eyes tired and knowing. "Dean called Rowena. She's going to meet us back in the bunker. That is . . . if you're coming."

It had been years since Cas's presence had been a question, rather than a given. But at that precise moment, with the demon in Jack's body giving Dean  _the eyes_ and Sam's shoulder rotting away on his damned body, Cas was grateful for the option to say no, if he wanted to. 

But—

"I'm coming," he said. What else would he do? What else was there _to_ do?

Sam was visibly relieved. "Oh, good." He shifted, hunching and flexing his shoulders as if they were stiff, and Cas was sure the wound was bothering him regardless of how he lied. "Thank you."

The words lingered awkwardly between them.  _Thank you_ was for favors and keeping score.  _Thank you_ wasn't, or hadn't been, for Cas. But it seemed Sam was taking nothing for granted, and Cas wasn't sure the hunter was entirely wrong for that. 

"I, uh—I know I don't have the right to say this," Sam mumbled, "but . . . if you ever need to talk about Jack . . ."

His voice wavered over the boy's name.

"I don't know what I'd say." Cas looked toward Dean, catching the edge of a feeling—a wistful memory of riding in the Impala, Jack in the backseat—before it hardened to stone. "But by all means, if you have something to get off your chest, do it."

Sam glanced at Dean, too. "I was so tired of fighting, I didn't even try to . . . I'm sorry. I know I can't ever make that right. But the thing is, Cas—Dean is tired, too."

Cas was so used to Sam arguing on his brother's behalf that he didn't need to hear the rest of the spiel. He waved his hand, turning his back on the car and the hunter. "I'm also tired, Sam. Did you ever consider that?"

"All the time," Sam said, which was surprising. And then, Cas thought, it shouldn't have been. "I've watched you follow us through Hell and back, Cas, and if you weren't getting sick of it . . . well, I'd be kind of worried." His expression was complicated, pained and sympathetic at the same time, and Cas couldn't look at it long without feeling something he didn't want to feel, so he looked to his shoes instead. "I guess I just want you to know that . . . geez, I don't know. I'm here, I guess. For you. And Dean is, too, for all he's not acting like it."

"But neither of you were there for Jack." Cas couldn't remember the last time he'd so thoroughly examined his feet. They were somewhat shorter than he'd always assumed. "He was my son, Sam. And loving him was all I ever asked of you."

The  _was_ damned near killed him to say, and he'd died enough times to know exactly what nearly doing it felt like. "And now I have to watch a demon string his body along like a puppet just because  _Dean—_ "

"We heading out, or what?" Dean called, interrupting them. He was too far away to hear the conversation, but Sam winced anyway.

It didn't matter how sympathetic Sam was, or how sorry. He was still on Dean's side until the end of the world—and, Cas supposed, even after it. He was on Dean's side and Cas was nothing in comparison.

Cas and Jack both.

The hunters slept, or tried, and Cas sat up in the bunker's kitchen with a cup of coffee. Jack had left a button-up shirt slung over the back of his chair, and Cas could vaguely remember him insisting he'd pick it up later, before everything had slid so violently sideways. 

They'd adjusted the wards to let the demon in, despite Cas's disapproval, and he wandered around the bunker now, head tilted back to keep his white-framed glasses over the gaping holes where Jack's eyes had once been. Cas seemed to be the only one who grasped that this was the most terrible thing to ever happen in the history of terrible things that had happened to them. The demon kept up a steady stream of observations that made Cas want to strike him down.

"He was your kid, wasn't he?" the demon finally asked, turning Jack's head in Cas's direction. His movements were so much more fluid than the nephilim's had been. It should have been more human, but Cas found it unnatural. "The suit."

Cas jerked his gaze away, burying his face in the coffee so he wouldn't have to engage the thing.

"He was." The demon drew the conclusion anyway, pivoting and making another round of the kitchen instead of leaving, like Cas had hoped he would. "Interesting. So you and Dean, you were raising a kid together? He didn't strike me as that kinda guy."

"It wasn't like that." Well, it was exactly like that, but no more. Cas didn't expect the demon would understand. "Jack was my responsibility."

"Ah. So that's why you're so sore." The demon pulled out a chair and sat across from him. "Tell me, Castiel, if Dean didn't see this kid as his son, you think I have a chance?" He waggled his eyebrows above his glasses. "Because . . . I mean, damn. Have you  _seen_ that body?"

Cas pushed his own chair back, lunging across the table just as Dean himself happened to shuffle in. The timing couldn't have been more on the nose—another second, and Cas would have crushed the twisted soul out of Jack's poor body.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Dean was there in a second, half throwing himself over the table as he thrust his arm and most of his torso between Cas and the demon. "Cas, we need him. What are you doing?"

The demon stumbled back, tripping over his chair but still grinning in that stupid, guileless way.

Cas seethed. The anger, after hours of nothingness, was burning hot, and he could have snapped Dean's hand when the hunter shoved him back.

"Castiel," Dean said, sounding like he was speaking through his teeth, "a word?"

Cas leveled him with a glare. "I have nothing to say to you."

"Look, I know you're angry—"

"You were going to kill my son!" The words burst out of Cas on the back of his scalding rage, cutting his voice to shreds. "Tell me you would have done the same for Sam."

Dean had both hands on the table behind him, knuckles white as he leaned on it for support. His tongue was, apparently, tied.

"That's right." Cas backed away. "You wouldn't. And now, you throw  _this_ in my face." He gestured to the demon, who had the good sense to not say another goddamned word. "I'm not angry, Dean. I'm wishing I'd left you in Hell."

The stricken look on Dean's face should have been satisfying, or painful, or  _something_ . 

Cas turned away.

Rowena prodded at Sam's wound the way Cas had, shaking her head and tutting under her breath. "This isn't good, Sammy. Not good at all."

Sam clenched his jaw, and Cas—watching from the doorway of Sam's room—wondered if Rowena could sense the rot as he had. She was intentionally vague about what she could actually _do_.

The witch sat back, slim hands falling in her lap. "It's a miracle you can feel that arm, love. Far as I can tell, you've been bitten by death itself." She glanced at Cas. "You said this was a divine weapon? Surely you have a better idea than I what could fix this."

Cas shook his head. "God—Chuck—created the weapon specifically for Jack. Nothing of its like has ever existed before."

"Well. That's a shame." Rowena patted Sam's bare bicep, not-so-subtly letting her eyes trail across his flesh as she did so. "But, on the bright side, unless you're planning to off me right now, it looks like I'm never going to die."

Sam, bafflingly, laughed. And not in the polite,  _I-don't-want-to-hurt-your-feelings-so-I'll-pretend-this-is-amusing_ way that he usually laughed at things. Or even the cynical,  _you-don't-understand-why-I-think-this-is-funny_ way he'd adopted over the last few months. He slipped his shirt back on with Rowena's help, batting her wandering hands away from his abdomen. "That's a hell of a bright side."

Cas crossed his arms. "There's really nothing you can do?"

"Well, there's plenty I can try." Rowena shot him a dirty look. "I just don't believe anything will work. Still. Has he ingested any angel grace?"

"I—no. Obviously not."

"Obviously," she repeated, raising her eyebrows. "Heavens, Castiel. I would have thought that was the first thing you'd try. Alright, come on over, where's your blade?"

Cas started forward, but Sam held up a hand. "No. We're not screwing around with angel grace again."

"Demon blood, then?" She looked between them, not realizing she'd just suggested giving vodka to an alcoholic. "Oh, you two are being real spoilsports today. Alright, I'll whip up a few hex bags, I can see that's what you're looking for." She brushed her bangs into place with a finger, rising to her feet and sweeping from the room with a haughty expression and a few choice words about certain people being picky about what kind of help they wanted.

Cas shuffled toward Sam again. "Is it extremely painful?"

For a moment, he thought Sam would continue to lie. Then the hunter dropped his head. "Don't tell Dean."

"That will be easy. I'm not speaking to him."

Sam glanced up and bit his lip. Whatever he was going to say next was lost as the demon ducked his head in.

"Is this one of those off-limits rooms, or am I okay to enter?"

Cas narrowly avoided telling the bastard to fuck off.

"Come in," Sam said, sounding weary. "I thought you were brainstorming with Dean."

"Yeah, well, he gets mean when he drinks, doesn't he?" The demon swung his arms, grinning. "And I thought, whatever you guys are doing in here looks like a lot more fun. I mean," he held out his palms, " _Sam Winchester_ . The guy even demons are afraid of. Is it true that you told a whole group of Crowley's old goons the next king of Hell would have to step over your dead body?"  
Sam looked like he was going to cry. 

"It's true," Cas said, in his place. "And he happened to love Jack, too, so I'd keep from pissing him off if I were you."

The demon raised his eyebrows, clearly interested. "Oh? It was like that?"

"It wasn't like anything." The snap, to everyone's surprise, came from Sam instead of Cas. And Cas didn't know if the heat in his voice was guilt, or heartbreak, or just plain anger but Cas was glad for it. He didn't want to be the only one falling apart over here.

The demon cocked his head in a Jacklike gesture, and smiled.

Cas sat outside, on the slight hill over the bunker's entrance, hands clasped between his knees. He kept remembering how Sam's face had crumpled when Cas had confirmed there was no way to bring Jack back. He kept remembering how he hadn't dared look at Dean, because if he'd looked and Dean was grieved, he would have broken, and if he'd looked and Dean was impassive, he would've killed his best friend.

Cain hadn't killed Abel out of hatred. He'd killed out of passion.

Cas closed his eyes. The demon was wrong; Dean didn't get mean when he drank. He was mean all the time. Drinking just meant he got worse at hiding it.

There was a loud, long scrape, and Cas opened his eyes to see Sam emerge from the bunker. He scaled the hill easily, coming to sit next to Cas, legs dangling over the door. "We're going to have to do something about that demon, I know."

Cas shrugged.

They sat silently for a moment. Sam twiddled his fingers. Cas thought about the impending end of the world, which—as Sam had pointed out—really wasn't a new game to them.

"I want to tell you something," Sam finally said. "About Dean."

Cas didn't say anything. Sam seemed to take that as permission to continue.

"A while back, when we first found Jack—before the whole Apocalypse World thing, when we thought you were gone—Dean got really . . . I mean, he's been through tough shit his whole life. He's taken hit after hit, we both have. And the thing is, losing you, it was like he decided that was it. That was the last fuck he had to give."

Sam was looking across the open field ahead of them, rather than at Cas, as he spoke. Maybe it was easier for him that way. "You're right, you know. He didn't love Jack as much as we—or he—thought he did. But only because he didn't have that much love left to spare."

"Love is not a finite resource." Cas folded his hands.

"I just think you should talk to him," Sam said quietly. "Because he's good at pretending he's got it all together, but I don't think he does. Michael broke him."

Cas didn't know how to respond to that without sounding selfish. He'd sacrificed so much for the Winchesters already. He hadn't meant what he told Dean—he would never have left him in Hell—but there was a limit. This was his limit.

"Dean told me once there are some losses you don't come back from." Cas looked across the field, too. They'd discussed starting a garden, maybe even growing an actual ( _small_ ) crop, but one crisis after another kept hitting and the plans had never come to fruition. "For him, his mother. For me, Jack. Perhaps Dean isn't the only thing broken, Sam."

He patted the hunter's knee. "And it isn't your job to fix it. It's about time someone tells you that."

Sam frowned like this was an unpleasant situation that had occurred to him, but that he'd hoped ignoring would banish it from existence. "It's just not right, you two fighting."

"We've always fought."

Sam knitted his brow. "Not like this."

So Cas went to talk to Dean.

Cas went to talk to Dean, not because he had an interest in being the bigger man, or because he felt like budging an inch on the stance he'd chosen, but because he knew two things for a fact and one was that this situation was untenable, and two was that it wouldn't change unless one of them _did_ something. And that person was never Dean.

The hunter was exactly where not-Jack had left him, in the library. Drinking. Being mean. There was no one around to be mean to, so he was muttering profanities at the book he studiously _wasn't_ reading. Not all that long ago, Cas would have been amused. Maybe even grateful, that they had Dean here and cranky instead of gone and possessed by an archangel.

Cas pulled out the chair across from Dean. "Can I sit?"

Dean waved his beer bottle like he didn't give a fuck, but his eyes tracked Cas as he settled in. The Dean that Cas knew gave several fucks. The Dean Cas knew gave all the fucks. But that didn't mean he was _this_ Dean.

"Sam says you're broken," Cas said, without preamble.

Dean gave up the pretense of reading at once. "What the hell—"

"I'm not finished. Sam says you're broken but that's no excuse for what you did. And . . ." Cas lowered his eyes. "And no excuse for what I said."

There was a short pause. Dean wiped the mouth of his bottle on his t-shirt. "Shit, man. I know that."

"I don't like the man you've become," Cas said flatly.

Dean looked away.

"You used to try." Cas reached for the bottle, and Dean passed it over like it was exactly what he'd been waiting for. "When did you stop trying?"

He drank. He could remember loving Dean the way he remembered how alcohol burned when he was human. But he couldn't feel it, any more than he could feel his way past the empty-air fizz of molecules evaporating in a mouth not meant to consume human food. He wiped the mouth on his coat, and passed the bottle back.

Dean's fingers curled around it, on top of Cas's. For a moment neither of them let go.

Cas didn't know what he wanted from Dean anymore. Once, he would have been electrified by the touch. Now, he wondered if this was what humans meant by _falling out of love_. Everything was cold.

Dean dropped his hand. "You hate me."

It wasn't a question. It was the conclusion he'd drawn back in the crypt, the reality they'd all been tiptoeing around because acknowledging it meant they had truly reached the point of no return. Saying it meant that everything was broken, the very foundation of their reality.

Because all of this, from Cas's very beginning, revolved around Cas's loyalty to Dean. He was loyal to a fault, loving to a fault, _forgiving_ to a fault. And saying now that, no, there was something that Cas could not forgive—

"I don't hate you," Cas said, which was almost true, and, "I don't feel anything."

And that was true.

So time went on and the world kept ending, only it didn't quit all the way because there were still hunters fighting the good fight, still Winchesters making stupid sacrifices, and so on and so forth and Cas imagined it was all very dramatic in its own way.

But he wasn't there. He couldn't be.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam was fond of a certain poem that went something like:

_so this is the way the world ends . . . etc, etc, mortal nonsense._

And Cas had never been a fan of poetry, let alone poems that decided to tackle the curiously sticky front-and-backsides of love and death, which was most poems. Very few people chose to write odes to the local Wal-Mart, or find meaning in describing the peculiar parking jobs they'd come across in their times, but those things were far more fascinating to Cas than the traditional sonnets and love letters.

_Not with a bang, but a whimper._

It had become a colloquialism, which was another one of those things Cas had a hard time with, but he thought that maybe Sam liked it because it so aptly described the darkest of their final hours—the quiet after the storm, the true death for men like them. For soldiers. Their world ended when the fight did, after all.

So when Sam called, three months after Cas had hit the road, and he said, "God's gone," and he said, "We closed the hell gate," and he said, "Dean killed Belphegor," and Cas said, "Huh. That was his name?"

It was a whimper.

"Dean misses you," Sam added, as if that mattered now. "You don't have to—I'm not asking you to come back or anything. Just. You could visit."

It was more of a question than an offer, and Cas answered it in kind. "No."

Before all of this, in the golden-sweet five minutes when they were all together, Dean and Sam and Cas and Jack, Dean got it into his head that they should go on a trip, even though Sam was quick to point out they went on trips all the time.

"Not a hunt," Dean had said, and looked to Cas for support because that was what he always did. Cas had nodded his support, because that was what _he_ always did, and they'd all gone camping even though Dean hated camping.

Later on, after they'd done all the standard camping things and Sam had kipped out in the tent, and eventually Jack had crawled in and joined him (because he slept occasionally, and even when he didn't, he liked to pretend while he listened to Sam breathe), Cas had sat up on the hood of the Impala like he liked to do, watching stars. Dean had joined him.

It had been an unremarkable moment, just another night where they kept vigil over their families and talked about nothing. In a way, it hadn't been much different from being on a hunt. But Dean had been more relaxed than Cas had seen him in months, and he'd talked about bringing Mom out here, and Cas had said _Yes, Dean, that's a wonderful idea_ , and they'd planned to invite her to the bunker for movie night.

Dean had said, "I never get used to it. The peace. I know it ain't gonna last."

And Cas had _wanted_ to say, "Of course it doesn't, because you're a hurricane in a plaid shirt and I wouldn't love you half as much if you weren't," but he chickened out and said something pithy and unromantic instead and he still thought about that. He thought about what might have happened if he hadn't held back. He thought about how Dean had chuckled at whatever it was Cas _had_ said and leaned back, his thigh pressed against Cas's as he reclined across the windshield.

He thought about how nights like that really were unremarkable, a dime a dozen, as if there was nothing more natural than the two of them sitting up and watching the stars and talking about life as if it would never change, never ruin, never sour. As if they'd be together forever.

Cas was spoiled for it. He'd taken it for granted. He'd thought that was what you were supposed to do with family, but he bled and bled and bled for Dean and all of his assumptions were for nothing. And that was what it boiled down to in the end, nothing, just nothing, and that's what he drove through now as he made his way as far from the bunker as he could.

Nothing.

Sam called a few more times over the next weeks, and Cas picked up if he noticed it but didn't bother to call back if he didn't. And he started leaving his phone in the glovebox of his truck, or under the seat, or silenced in the pocket of his coat, so he didn't notice as often as he might have.

He missed Jack. The missing was always with him, the only feeling he was capable of now, it seemed. The proper thing to do would be to head off on an epic quest to resurrect his son, but he didn't know how to bring back something God himself killed. Humans who died the normal way were hard enough, and Jack was a nephilim; a sick one, at that. Cas didn't know where to even begin. They'd exhausted their resources, gotten most of their allies killed, and ventured so far into unfamiliar territory that Cas could hardly remember what life had been like as an ordinary seraph.

He was positive it had been simpler, and less painful, than this. But it had been empty.

He'd come full circle, in that. He was rattling around the midwest in an ancient truck, bereft of friends or family, and it wasn't the first time that had happened but it was the first time he had no _purpose_.

Without Jack, without Dean, Cas had no reason to be here, and no home to go back to. He was no one's son, brother, father, partner. He'd never truly been a hunter. He couldn't call himself an angel anymore. And as hard as he'd tried to be human over the years, it had never fully worked because he wasn't human, he was _more_ , he was divine.

Divine, in a world where divinity was a dirty word. Where everything sacred had ceased to mean, to use Dean's language, jack shit. Where did that leave him?

Driving. Hoping to find meaning in roadside attractions and the occasional hunt, in conversations with Sam over the phone and a significant lack of conversations with Dean over any form of communication. He listened to the radio. He found libraries and read books; he liked _Slaughterhouse-5._ He was not a fan of _American Gods._ He didn't bother with the poetry section.

Jack had been his purpose, and before him, Dean. He'd spent his life fighting someone else's battles, and he was only just now realizing what he should have known all along—he didn't _have_ any battles of his own.

It would be easier if the world had ended in fire, ice, been ruined back in that crypt with the three of them standing back-to-back, unified for that one, last second before the whatever-this-was had crept up on them. If they all could have died fighting in one fair go and then been done with it. It was a horrible thing to think. There was no one around to make him feel guilty about it.

There was no one around to make him feel, period.

A month or so after he left, he was investigating a series of child disappearances along the South Dakota border, toying with the idea of visiting Claire but not fully committed because she had a way of asking questions and doubtless the first one would be, "Where's Dean?", and the next would be, "Where's Jack?", and Cas had no idea how to answer either.

He hated working the child cases more than any others, and this one was especially difficult, both because he was alone and because he'd so recently lost Jack. And that was before the bodies started showing up.

He was staring down at the second, fighting the overwhelming sense that he was useless at this job, when the police chief came up to him and said, "Your partner's askin' an awful lot of stupid questions, pal."

"Partner?" Cas knew immediately, or at least suspected, but he still had to ask. "Where?"

"Down the road a'ways." The man pointed, away from the crater the little girl's body was lying in, and Cas followed the man's directions to see Dean Winchester standing by the police blockade, doubtless trying to swagger his way into the crime scene.

Cas bit back a sigh. It wasn't uncommon for hunters to run into each other, but he'd still assumed the brothers would be too busy with . . . whatever they were busy with . . . to mess around in South Dakota. He nodded at the police chief and headed for the blockade.

"--going to get my supervisor on the line, and then there'll be hell to pay, buddy," Dean was saying, when Cas ventured into earshot. He sounded genuinely angry, not the fake-mad tone he adopted when he was trying to bully someone into giving him what he wanted.

Cas took in Dean's state at once: the tone, the crooked tie, the bags under his eyes that his fake glasses didn't entirely conceal. His hand shook as he shoved his badge back into his pocket. Dean was good at hiding when he was upset, but Cas was better at figuring him out. Maybe the squad blocking the road didn't notice anything amiss, but right now, Cas wouldn't have wanted to go one-on-one with Dean.

He suppressed another sigh, because of course, that was what he was about to do. He pushed past the officers gathered around Dean and grabbed the hunter's shoulder.

"Excuse us," he said to the policemen. "I'll take care of this."

To Dean, he added, "Did you know that impersonating an agent of the law is a federal crime, sir? I'm going to have to report this to _my_ supervisor."

Dean bristled, and Cas quickly dragged him far enough away that the authorities wouldn't hear them talking.

Dean stuck a finger in Cas's face. "You little shit. This is my case."

"I was here first. I believe that still counts for something."

"I've been tracking this lamia for the last month. Have you?" Dean's eyes flicked over Cas as he spoke, so shamelessly sizing him up that Cas was almost embarrassed on his behalf. "I didn't think so." He shook Cas's hand off his shoulder.

Cas let his hands fall to his sides. "I've been alive for far longer than you. So. I was _here_ first."

"Oh, come on." Dean groaned, but his face softened for a split second, and he almost smiled. "You know that's playing dirty, Cas."

Cas's stomach twisted. It should have been uncomfortable, given everything, but it wasn't. It was as familiar and well-worn as his coat; it was routine. It was home, or what his home had been for the last decade.

He read it in Dean's face, the second the other man made the connection as well. He stepped away from Cas—Cas hadn't even noticed they'd drawn close—and squared his shoulders. "Well. I hate to be the asshole telling you to step off when you're only trying to help. But . . . I mean, unless you want to work it together . . ."

There was a slight gruffness in his tone toward the end, an attempt to mask the note of hopefulness that bled through anyway. His eyes flicked over Cas again, before settling on his face. Waiting for Cas to meet his gaze, to engage, to repeat their old patterns.

Cas didn't meet his eyes. "Promise me you'll catch it, Dean."

He trusted Dean's word, despite everything. When it came to hunting, Dean was the best. So when he nodded and said yes, of course, he'd kill the damn thing, Cas didn't have a problem walking away. He was even a little relieved.

"I'm staying at the Sleepville Inn, across from the Gas n' Sip," Dean called after him. "Just, uh. If you need something."

 _I need Jack,_ Cas almost said, but that would have been too cruel even for them.

He left town directly after that.

"I'm just saying, a visit would mean the world to him. To both of us." Sam sounded tired, but then, he'd sounded tired for five years straight so Cas wasn't sure if it was normal-tired or true-tired. It was hard to tell over the phone.

He dug his hands deeper into the dirt. He had Sam on speaker, so he could garden while they talked. He had not mentioned to Sam that he'd started a garden, but he had—briefly—touched on the fact that he owned land now. He hadn't mentioned where it was, or how he'd finagled it, and Sam hadn't asked. They weren't those kinds of friends anymore.

"I'm worried about him," Sam said.

"I'm not," Cas said, and wiped his hands on his canvas apron. "I'm hanging up now, Sam. I'll talk to you later."

"Cas—"

It probably wasn't fair of him. No—he knew it wasn't fair of him. But it wasn't fair of Dean to throw Jack to the wolves, and it wasn't fair of Sam to take his side, and it wasn't fair of Jack for starting this whole mess by being a child and refusing to do what he was told and keep his grace—his _soul—_ to himself. It wasn't fair that Jack had loved Dean so much, he'd sacrificed his humanity to save him. And Dean hadn't loved Jack enough to remember his own.

Cas stood, pocketing the phone and examining his brand-new row of buried tulip bulbs. They wouldn't show until spring, of course, but he was satisfied just knowing they were there, that the potential was there. That was what gardening was supposed to be about, right? Hope?

He figured living in a post-apocalyptic world called for a healthy amount of that, even if the world hadn't caught on to the fact that it was ending just yet.

It was coming, though. Like the tulips eating their way to the surface, the end was waiting just around the corner. If Chuck was truly gone, then it wouldn't be long now. It seemed dangerously optimistic to be planting, in light of that, but Cas had thought it over more than once and always came to the same conclusion—he had to do _something_. It didn't matter what it was, because he'd always doubt his choice, and it would never be exactly right, but it had to be something. And if it had to be something, it might as well be the very first expression of creation Man had.

He went inside the cottage he'd bought along with the land and washed up. His sink was a rubber bin suspended from the ceiling, underneath an open spigot. He didn't have a bed. He never had company over; the pretense was pointless. But he did have chairs, because he'd gotten used to them, and a table for the same reason, and a few pillows and blankets because they had uses other than the obvious.

When he wasn't gardening, or washing his too-easily-soiled body, or clothes, he wrote. The notebooks were slowly piling up in the corner of the cottage where a bed might have been; he could easily churn out one or two a day. He'd begun with his early days as a seraph, back when Michael was running the show and time had been less than concrete and his head had swum with the songs of his brothers. He was writing the story of his life.

There was no particular reason for this, either, but it was a kind of growth in itself and it filled the nights and between-times.

He was writing when someone knocked on his door.

The knock was uncalled for, because the someone pushed their way in before Cas could get up and answer anyway.

And then Dean was standing in the cottage.

He was Dean as he'd always been Dean; Dean with the shirt and the jeans and the jacket and the look on his face like he'd seen some shit and he didn't want to talk about it, the slightly reddened eyes from driving all hours of the night and the beginnings of wrinkles around his mouth and forehead from all those smiles and frowns, in equal measure.

Cas hadn't seen him in . . . he'd lost track. A while. He didn't even remember the last thing he'd said to Dean, although he had the horrible feeling it was that he didn't care. Or maybe that nothing mattered. Or maybe that it was Dean's fault, what happened with Jack.

 _He's not doing so well,_ Sam had said, but Cas knew what Dean looked like when he wasn't _doing so well_ , and this wasn't that. Dean hadn't done well when they were on the run from Michael, and he hadn't done well in Purgatory and he hadn't done well when the Mark of Cain was cursed on him. Dean hadn't done well when they'd lost Jack the first time.

This was not that.

Cas didn't rise from his chair; he got the feeling that any attempts to stand would only land him right back where he'd begun.

Dean opened his mouth, blinked. Combed a hand through his hair and looked away, then back again. "I, uh. I had a speech. I practiced." His voice was rusty anyway. "Bounced it off Sam and everythin'." He slurred when he was nervous, like now, falling back into that farm-boy drawl he liked to insist he didn't have.

Cas tilted his head. "You tracked me down simply to tell me this?"

Dean's eyes flicked to the other chair in the room. "Mind if I sit?"

It was just like before, in the library all those weeks ago—when it was Cas asking, Dean not sure if he wanted to say yes. Cas nodded before he could think twice about it, and Dean eased into the chair.

He laced his fingers on the table in front of him, eyeing Cas's notebook. Cas closed it at once, setting the pencil on top, and waited.

Dean stayed fixated on the notebook. Maybe it was easier to look at than Cas. "I'm angry," he said, and it clearly wasn't what he'd meant to say because he went tense right after and didn't say anything else.

"And?" Cas finally prompted.

"I'm angry at God, and Jack, and you, and . . . and myself. I'm really fucking angry at myself. All of this began when I let Michael into this world, and I know you're gonna say I didn't have a choice, but I—"

"I won't," Cas interrupted calmly, and Dean's eyes flicked up to his. Surprised. "You had a choice. You chose your mother. Every time, you chose your mother. And while I understand your decision, I can't . . ." Something prickled at the bottom of the emptiness in him, the memory of a feeling, just as painful as Dean's presence. "I've always supported your choices in the end, Dean. I don't harbor any ill will toward you, I just . . . am incapable of giving any more. So I'm done. Do you have something to add to this conclusion?"

"I—yeah, man, fuck you," Dean said, with shocking heat. For a moment, he sounded like the old Dean. The one who cared. It was like a sucker punch to the gut, only worse, because punches rarely hurt Cas. "That's right, fuck you. So I screwed the pooch—what else is new? I've always fucked up, and you've never hesitated to call me out on it. So what's—I mean, why—for Christssake."

"Jesus has absolutely nothing to do with this, Dean."

Dean pointed at him. "You fucking hit me."

"When?" Cas frowned.

"Like . . . so many times! You yell and you punch and you go to Sam, and sometimes you take a couple days to cool your head but you always . . . you _fight_ , dammit. And you said I've given up and I'm not the old me but I call bullshit, because you're not you anymore, either. _You_ gave up. You walked out on m—us. Me and Sam."

Dean was breathing heavily now, brows furrowed from the weight of his rant, but with each word, Cas heard the choke in his voice lessen. It was the most _Dean_ he'd been in so very long. And it made Cas waver.

"Well?" Dean demanded. "Since when is there nothing between us? We've fucking—"

"Lost a son." Cas folded his arms. "We lost Jack, Dean."

"I . . ."

"I want to hear you say it." The emotion rose up in him without warning, an abrupt resurrection of how he used to feel. It wasn't exactly the same, but it wasn't empty, either. It was peevish and hurt and grieving but it was something, the way his garden was something. And he wanted to hear Dean _say_ _it._

Dean's tongue touched his lower lip; his skin was visibly dry, even from where Cas was sitting. Cas didn't think he was going to say it, at first.

Dean's voice was quiet in the small cottage.

"We lost Jack."

It hurt. It hurt and hurt and hurt, more than Cas thought was possible, more than it had hurt the day Jack had died—more than seeing the demon walk around in Jack's body. Dean looked him in the eye.

"Our son," he added softly.

Cas did not look away.

Dean slept in the cottage that night, and the next. He checked out Cas's garden and made suitable impressed noises at the unimpressive tulip bulbs.

Cas stood next to him, hands in the big front pocket of his canvas apron, and said, "This doesn't fix anything, you know."

Dean was crouched in front of the bed; he hummed and looked up at Cas's words, squinting in the late fall sun. "You mean the tulips, or me being here?"

"I'm tired, Dean. I don't want to fight for you any more." And that sentence, too, could have a double meaning but Dean didn't question it, just straightened and brushed his fingers clean on his jeans and hummed again.

When he spoke next, his words were carefully chosen and cautious, and Cas respected that. "What you said before . . . that I used to . . . try. Do you think you could help me do that again?"

"Try?"

Dean nodded without looking at him. "I don't really remember what I did, when I was doing things right. And I guess I started relying on you to tell me when I went to far, and I should . . . I gotta do that myself. Because even you—" He bit his lower lip, and didn't continue.

Cas still knew Dean well enough to guess what was going through his head. "Even I can abandon you?"

Dean hunched his shoulders. "You don't gotta say it like that."

"Dean, it's not that you're . . . wrong, exactly, I just don't think we—" It was Cas's turn to falter.

"Fit," Dean supplied. "Because of what happened with Jack."

"Because of everything." Cas squeezed his hands into fists, hidden in his apron pocket. "Because you've been spiraling for years, and I can't watch it any more, and even though I can't stop loving you no matter how much of an asshole you are, I don't have to stick around and actually _witness_ it."

He could feel Dean looking at him. He didn't dare lift his own head.

There was a pregnant pause. Dean shuffled his feet. Cas scrutinized his tulip bed.

"I didn't think you still loved me," Dean finally admitted. "Not after everything."

Cas took a breath. "I didn't think you knew I loved you at all."

"I knew. I just . . . I get that I'm not an easy guy, okay? I didn't want to make anything more complicated than it already was."

"More complicated than me falling from Heaven for a mortal who's genetically incapable of expressing emotion outside of a bottle of alcohol?"

"Well, when you put it that way." Dean stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket, his elbow brushing Cas's. "Look, I want to try to be that guy again, Cas. The one worthy of . . . y'know."

"You were never worthy." Cas heard the sharp intake of Dean's breath, like he'd been hurt, but went on anyway. "That wasn't the point. I'm not angry at you for being human, Dean, I just can't suffer it any longer. I—I thought I could."

Dean inhaled again, more jagged. His voice was significantly less stable when he spoke. "So, that's just it, then? You're done with me? That's the extent of your fucking love?"

Cas rounded on him, anger rearing behind his borrowed ribs, filling the space that used to be empty with temporary purpose. "Well, what's the extent of yours, Dean? What have you ever done to fight for—for—for _this_?" He gestured between them angrily.

"Shit, Cas, I'm not gonna work my ass off to—"

"You haven't even said you were sorry." Cas let the words loose, finally, and seized the collar of Dean's coat, shoving him back a step. "Are you sorry? Do you even care that Jack is dead?"

Dean didn't say anything. His teeth were gritted.

Cas shook him. "Well? Put yourself in my shoes, Dean. Would you believe me, if I came to you and told you I loved you, with Sam's blood still on my hands? With no trace of remorse? Without even admitting that I loved him, too, that he was my family and I was sorry he was gone—"

"Of course I'm fucking sorry!" Dean's shout tore through the air between them, loud and harsh and broken.

Cas's hands wavered.

"I'm sorry," Dean repeated, hoarsely, eyes red-rimmed and squinty. "I'm sorry about Jack, Cas. I wish to dickens that Chuck hadn't killed him. But I _am_ in your fucking shoes, Cas, because where's Mom in all of this? You're all about Jack, like she wasn't shit to you. Like she didn't adopt you as her own fucking son, and Jack, too."

Cas's grip slipped entirely, and he let his hands fall slack at his sides. He didn't have a clever answer, or any answer at all.

Dean blinked, his lips pressed together so tightly they shook. And he was right. Cas hated to admit it, but he was right. There was as much truth to Dean's side of the story as Cas's, which was what made this complicated, which was why it was easier for Cas to just leave and couldn't Dean see that?

The hunter looked away all of a sudden. "You were family, Cas."

 _Were_.

Cas looked away, too. It was impossible to pretend that didn't sting when he was looking directly at Dean. He'd spent the better part of a decade memorizing every shade of that man's voice, every iteration of his expressions, and he still knew nothing. Because he'd honestly thought there was nothing their relationship couldn't withstand.

After a pause, Dean said, "I don't understand why you're doing this."

Cas looked back at him—how could he not? Dean was looking back, the murky fall day turning his irises translucent. "Me? Not to throw stones, Dean, but you began this. You decided we weren't family anymore."

"No, you chose a monster over us." The fury came and went from Dean's voice in a blaze, burning out in a single sentence. His brow furrowed, and it seemed like he was going to add something to that, but in the end he just shook his head.

They were talking in circles, and Cas had been right the first time. This didn't fix anything.

"Dean." He put his hands in the pocket of his apron again. He wanted to sound calm, non-aggressive, when he said this. "I think it's time you left."

Dean didn't argue.


	3. Chapter 3

Cas charged the burner phone every other day, at the nearest McDonald's. It was getting old, but the battery was still strong, and despite the beating the plastic casing had taken, it was just as capable as it was when he bought it.

Only two people on earth had this number, and neither of them ever called.

Cas wasn't sure, at this point, if he wanted them to.

He was known in these parts, now. A couple kids rode their bikes past his cottage almost every day, and sometimes they shouted silly questions, like was he a witch and had he ever killed a man. He said no, and only in self-defense, and they didn't frighten the way kids used to, before.

Before the world subtly changed.

If he hadn't known what to look for, he wouldn't have thought twice about the increase in strange activity. He would have passed over the sudden streak in school shootings, missing persons, and people just plain acting bizarre. He probably would have been surprised at the man claiming to be Adolph Hitler over in Nevada, but he wouldn't have believed the man was actually Hitler.

He stopped gardening one morning, just over seven months ago now, put down his trowel, and exhaled. The noise that escaped him with that breath might have, if described by Sam Winchester, been called a whimper.

He'd known it was dwindling for months, of course, but it was still jarring to feel Heaven so abruptly _go_. He'd thought, what with the manmade angels of Jack's, that they'd had a fighting chance to keep the lights on. But obviously, something had gone sideways. One moment he'd had the faint tendrils of the Heavenly Host in the back of his mind, as it always was, and the next it was gone.

And now there was a void in the universe, just like that.

Whether people could see them or not, the increased ghost activity dented something major in the workings of the world, and Cas could swear it affected the population in more ways than just bumps in the dark. Politics were getting nasty. Crime rates were steadily climbing. Unexplained behavior was cropping up more and more, the world inching toward anarchy as set pieces fell apart behind the scenes.

The world Chuck abandoned was crumbling, slowly but surely.

Cas had given up writing. He'd adopted a dog. He'd painstakingly chipped away at the mortar between the rough stones of the cottage, and filled it in with new, better grout. He'd put in a floor—hours of long labor that, for the first time in who-remembered-how-long, made him miss Dean. He'd have enjoyed doing this with a friend.

The dog was adequate.

He saw about electricity, insulation, a space heater—not as good as in an actual house, but better than a shed. He didn't want to keep a dog in a shed. It felt good to do something for another creature, and he realized . . . he needed it.

Cas had never thought he _needed_ things. He wanted, certainly; he'd wanted a little too much for a little too long. But _need_ was a word that had only skirted the edges of his vocabulary, because _need_ implied some sort of consequences if you didn't have the thing in question, and Cas was above that. He wouldn't die if he didn't eat. He wouldn't waste away if he didn't sleep.

But apparently, he had a great capacity for loneliness.

The dog was a Great Dane, and she liked Cas about as much as he liked her, which worked out well. He took her for walks as often as she wanted, never tired of playing with her, never had more pressing things to do simply because he almost never had anything else to do. It was winter again, which meant there wasn't much to do in his garden, and the cottage renovations were as complete as they could be without hazing the structure to the ground and starting again.

He tooled around. He went to the library and he read the paper, he took walks around the small town he'd settled outside, he told stories to the locals—children and adults alike. They thought he was a harmless oddball; they were half right.

And then one day, he got a call. The burner phone that had lay dormant in his pocket for just over two years rang, shrill and startling in the cold, winter morning. He was playing with the dog, although she was more interested in digging holes in the freshly fallen snow than chasing the stick he was, admittedly half-heartedly, throwing.

Her head went up at the noise, her startled expression perfectly summarizing how Cas felt. He wasn't quite sure, at first, where the sound was coming from. And then it hit him, and he thrust his hand in the pocket of his overcoat and drew the phone out. The screen was lit up, the pixelated graphic of a handset rocking back and forth in time to the ringtone.

Cas flipped open the ancient phone and held it to his ear before it occurred to him that he might not want to answer.

"Hello?"

There was a short pause, a crackle of static. Bad connection. He had just enough time to wonder if it was a wrong number before the hoarse voice came through.

"Cas?"

A shudder—not quite a premonition, but close enough—ran through Cas, and he closed his eyes.

"Where are you?" he said, and then, "Hold on. I'm coming."

Dean met him halfway down the Oregon line, on the side of Highway 162, or 164, Cas lost count. It didn't matter. The Impala was parked on the shoulder, and Dean was leaning on the side facing the woods, nothing but a bowed head and round shoulders when Cas pulled over.

The anticipation had been building inside him over the course of the drive, a nauseating mix of excitement and nerves, coupled with the faint traces of anger and grief. He kept trying to rehearse what he was going to say, and coming up short. The dog in the cab kept nuzzling the back of his neck encouragingly, as if she could sense his unease.

But then he spotted the familiar, beetle-backed black car, and the world didn't end and his throat didn't seize up and the emotions knotting his stomach as if he were truly human melted away and he pulled over far too soon, leaving the truck idling with one door flung open as he tore across the last few yards.

Dean took one, two steps away from the car, then three more—long strides that were almost a sprint—and he flung his arms out and Cas slammed into him and for a moment it was just like every other reunion they'd ever had, as if it had been monsters or death or circumstances that had kept them apart and not their own damn selves.

Dean's arms locked like a vise around Cas, and Cas hugged him back just as fiercely, grabbing fistfuls of his canvas jacket. Behind them, the dog barked. Dean's breath was heavy and choppy in Cas's ear, his heartbeat reverberating through Cas's chest, and he was sturdy and shaking at the same time, like an oak with wind whipping through its more fragile branches.

It took a few minutes for Cas to realize at least half of Dean's breaths were actually words, panting, slippery things that made no sense when strung together: "Sammy," and "Sorry," and "Cas," and once, "Jack."

"It's okay." Cas had forgotten how this felt; for so long, he'd mourned alone. He'd gotten used to weathering the cold, empty feeling by himself. He wondered if Dean had suffered the same. "Never mind about all of it. I'm here."

"Sam," Dean said again, his breathing less breath now and more wet, not-quite-sobs. He'd never admit to crying on Cas's shoulder, of course, but in the face of this—well, Cas would have been shocked if Dean had stayed composed. He kept his arms around Dean, gave both of them an excuse not to look at each other.

It was a long time before Dean pulled away, and Cas didn't push it. He hadn't gotten the specifics over the phone, but he wasn't eager to know them, either. Details didn't matter, not in this. Because nothing, no how or why or when, could change the reality.

Hands on Cas's shoulders, Dean half stepped back and half pushed him away. Cas let his arms fall to his sides at once, well aware of Dean's need for space.

"Where is he?"

"Back at the bunker. I couldn't stay there, not after . . ." Dean trailed off, and lifted one hand to dash at his eyes. He sniffed. "Shit. Didn't mean to full-on ugly cry, there."

"It's okay, Dean. Sam—" Cas hesitated. He wasn't sure how to phrase it. "What exactly was he trying to do, again?"

"Get Jack." The expression on Dean's face was bitter, and he did nothing to hide it in his voice, either. "He just wouldn't let go. I kept telling him—I wanted Jack back, too. But it was different with Sam, it was like he couldn't stop, he couldn't . . . he couldn't _live_ if Jack wasn't alive."

Cas suddenly remembered Sam saying that there were some deaths people didn't come back from. And at the time, he'd been so wrapped up in what was going on between him and Dean that he hadn't stopped to think that maybe Sam had also been talking about himself. He closed his eyes, accepting the now-familiar pang of guilt.

"And the thing is, Jack, he—well, you know. He wasn't in Heaven, or hell, or Purgatory; he's a nephilim, and God erased him from existence, so he wasn't . . . anywhere. And now Sam . . . he was doing this spell with Rowena and . . ." Dean lost his confidence halfway through the story, shaking his head and stepping away from Cas. He half turned, scrubbing his palm against his cheeks again. "And now he's nowhere, too."

Cas didn't know what to say.

Dean took a deep, shaky breath. "He had this . . . this wound, on his shoulder. From shooting God. And the idiot kept telling me it was fine, it was healing, it _had healed_ , but all this time . . . it was there. Like a friggin' dormant disease, waiting for the right combination of shit to bring it to life—Rowena says he was already half dead when he went into the spell, that it was just too fucking easy for him to . . ." Dean made a _swoosh_ ing motion with his hands, mimicking a sideways slide. "And now she's saying there's no Heaven? Is that true?"

"It's true." Cas glanced over his shoulder, and whistled for the dog. She trotted up to him at once, licking his hand. "It fell a few months ago. I wouldn't be surprised to hear the veil between life and death is also thinning. Perhaps Sam was trying to use this to his advantage and it backfired."

Dean nodded, and eyed the dog. "What's his name?"

"Ah—it's female. And I don't know." Cas stroked her ears. "She knows when I'm talking to her."

The Dane looked up and barked, as if confirming his statement. Dean crouched down and reluctantly let her sniff at his hands, giving him a lick of approval after a second's inspection. Cas told her to sit, and Dean straightened. He was much closer to Cas now, but he didn't move away.

"I thought . . . I always thought the end would be so much _more_ than this." Dean shoved his hands in his pockets. "Cosmic joke's on me, I guess."

Cas looked at him. He took in Dean's battered jeans and holey jacket, the scruff clinging to his slightly rounded jaw, the way his face seemed thinner and his middle seemed thicker and everything else just seemed knobby and tired and sharp. Cas had made it very clear he was done sacrificing anything for the Winchesters, and he'd devoted quite a lot of time to insisting that he didn't feel anything about either of them any more, but he was heartbroken that Sam was gone.

He sighed. "Dean . . . there might be something I can do."

The look in Dean's eyes instantly became guarded. Hope was Winchester crack: they had to be careful with it. But Cas wouldn't have said it if he wasn't more than half sure, and he knew Dean was aware of that.

"Don't fuck with me," Dean told him softly. "I can't handle that right now."  
Cas shook his head. "I'll meet you back at the bunker."

Cas had plenty of time to mull it over while he drove to the bunker. He had more than enough time to change his mind, change his mind again, and then berate himself for being so unresolved.

But by the time he got there, he'd decided. He had one more grand, selfless act left in him, and if anyone deserved it, it was Sam Winchester. He wasn't doing this for Dean. He was doing it for the man who'd given his life trying to get Cas's son back.

That was defensible. It made sense. It had nothing to do with Dean, nothing to do with the tragic look in his eyes or the way it had felt like the whole world was crumbling when Dean was shaking in Cas's arms; this was not a decision of the heart. Cas was firm on that. He was not falling back into his old habits.

Even if it was good to just walk next to Dean again, close enough that he stepped on Dean's heel a few times and got snapped at.

Just like old times.

Dean had laid the body out in the war room, across the map table that Sam had loved more than any GoogleEarth or MapQuest. It was a gruesome sight; not because Sam was mutilated or decayed, but because he wasn't. He didn't look _dead_.

Technically he wasn't, Dean said, and then, "This isn't why I called you. You don't have to do this."

Cas touched Sam's temple, which was, in fact, warm. He appeared to be in a coma, although—disconcertingly—his chest never rose or fell, and when Cas held a hand under Sam's nose, he felt no breath pass from his lungs. "I know. But it's Sam." He glanced at Dean. "You understand what I mean."

"Yeah. _He_ never made your shit list." Dean said it under his breath, but Cas heard anyway. He'd have had to be completely deaf not to.

Cas chose not to be frustrated that Dean still didn't get it. He checked Sam's eyelids, finding no activity there, either, and pressed two fingers to the pulse point at Sam's neck, and then wrist. He could feel the blood circulating through Sam's body, but he had no idea where the oxygen was coming from because Sam was not breathing, and his heart was not beating.

Dean pulled at Sam's collar, showing Cas the gunshot wound that had never healed. Cas eyed it; reddened flesh around a black hole, dark veins suggesting infection but without the smell. "Did Sam retain use of his arm over the last two years?"

"Yeah. As far as I knew, up until this happened, the damn thing had healed." Dean scowled at the wound. "It's not like we went shirtless around each other, like, ever. We aren't friggin' kids anymore."

Cas almost touched the wound, but reconsidered. "I'm going to try and drag Sam out of the veil," he announced, as if this hadn't already been obvious. "I can't promise anything, though. Where's Rowena?"

"Uh—library? I'm not sure. You want her?"

"No." The witch was good, but she also had a way of making things complicated. And dramatic. "I want you to hold my hand, Dean."

Dean stared at him as if he'd just asked to do something much more inappropriate, like drink Dean's blood or borrow his underwear. "Uh—why?"

"Because I'm not coming back until I find Sam, which means there's a very good chance I'm not coming back at all." Cas looked at Sam while he said it. He didn't want to see Dean's expression at the words; he didn't want to know if Dean was sad or relieved or indifferent. None of the options were acceptable.

He held his hand out, palm up.

"You're doing it now?" Dean's tone was hard to decipher. Cas was weirdly grateful for that.

"Yes."

His hand hovered in the air between them, but when Dean failed to take it, he let it drop. No sense forcing Dean to do something he didn't want to do. Cas leaned over Sam, and Dean seized his shoulder.

"Wait. I don't want to lose you, too."

Cas still couldn't look at him. He shrugged Dean's hand off. "This isn't about you, Dean."

And then he went in.

The thing about Sam—

Well, no, the thing about angelic possession was that you needed someone's consent to get in their head. And the thing about Sam was that once he'd been tricked into letting an angel into his head, and that door was still ever-so-slightly ajar. And anyway, Cas wasn't trying to possess Sam so the rules were a little different.

Cas went through Sam's head like a door, because the thing about Cas was—

Cas couldn't die. So he had to borrow someone else's.

Technically, Cas had died a few times. But it wasn't the same as a human death. Or, at least, it hadn't been.

Somehow, though, Cas ended up in the Empty anyway.

"Well, they're all coming up in me now, aren't they?" the Empty said, at some point in Cas's now-meaningless journey through the end of Sam Winchester. "No hell below us, above us only sky, etc., etc." It tweaked Cas's nose. "I've never had more company in my life."

Cas gritted his teeth. "It wasn't Sam's time to die."

"You don't know that."

"Of course I do! There are still things he was prophesied to do."

The Empty flopped its hand. "Tell me why I care."

"You don't have to." Cas set his jaw. "You can't keep him here. He doesn't belong. There's nothing you can do to stop him from leaving."

"Those were the rules, sure. Back when God was around, making rules." The Empty grinned. "But there's no God now, is there?"

"There's still me," Jack said, and stepped out of nothing to stand next to Cas.

Jack waved his fingers at the Empty as if it were a misbehaving child, not the face of the void itself, and it scowled, rippled, and melted away. Jack tilted his head at Cas.

"It's still here. Around us. But you were right, it can't do anything if you want to take Sam. Human souls aren't meant to be here." Jack reached out behind him, groping into the nothingness with a concentrated look on his face. Cas grasped his son's shoulder, astonished that his hand didn't pass straight through. Surely Jack was only a figment of his imagination. Surely nothing in this . . . nothing . . . was so tangible.

"Jack. You're really—"

"Got him." Jack made a sudden, jerking motion, and then he was holding Sam's hand and looking extremely pleased with himself. "Tag, you're it."

Sam, all five o'clock shadow and worn out sweater, peered down at him, head listing from side to side as if he'd just been struck. There was no sign he'd understood Jack's words. He shuffled a step closer, hunching down to examine Jack from all angles.

Jack smiled.

Cas cleared his throat. "We shouldn't spend more time here than we have to. Jack, you pulled me from the Empty once. Is there any way you can do it from this side, push all of us out?"

"Technically, all I did was wake you up." Jack toyed absently with Sam's hand while he spoke, and Sam either didn't notice or didn't care. "But things are different now, and the short answer is no. I can't."

"But you said there's nothing stopping Sam and I from going." Cas looked around, half expecting to see a magic door open in the middle of the Empty.

"That's true." Jack looked at Sam. "Well? He came all this way."

Sam's jaw set. "I'm still not leaving without you."

"Then I guess we're all having a party." Jack dropped his hand, the words laced with a surprising amount of sarcasm for the literal-minded nephilim. "I'll get the cake if you get the drinks."

Cas looked between them, realizing he was only getting half the conversation. "Wait. Sam, are you not trapped here?"

"Define _trapped_." Jack crossed his arms. "If you mean _trapped_ as in _too stubborn to leave_ , then yes, Sam is trapped. By his own stupidity."

"Sam, we thought—Dean thought something happened. Something to do with your wound." Cas reached out, touching Sam's shoulder gently, where the god-bullet should have been. Sam didn't flinch, which was the only sign this truly was happening on some spiritual plain. "You've chosen to stay this entire time?"

Sam had the grace to look guilty. "I didn't think Jack would refuse to come."

"I _can't_ come. We've been over this." Jack took a step away from both of them, but quickly drew closer again, as if they'd vanish if he got too far. Maybe they would. Other than the Empty, Jack seemed to be the only being who held any power here. "You have to let me go." He glanced at Cas. "Both of you."

Cas shook his head. Sam shook his head.

Jack rolled his eyes, and turned to Cas. "Please. You have to understand—I'm not giving up. This is just how things _are_."

"I'm not giving up." Sam spoke before Cas could, his voice tight with frustration. He put his hand on Jack's shoulder, forcing the kid to look him in the eye. "We've come too damn far for that, and we need you, and Dean . . ."

The name sank like an anchor between the three of them. Jack gently pushed Sam's hand from his shoulder.

"How is Dean?"

Cas looked to Sam for the answer, curious himself. Sam shrugged. As always, he didn't look quite comfortable with all attention—even if it was only the attention of two—on him. "I don't . . . he drinks, a lot. And he doesn't talk to me. But that's not exactly new." He shuffled his feet. "He hunts. We both miss you." His eyes wandered to Cas, and Cas wondered how much he was censoring. But that was the Winchester way, right? Pretending everything was fine right up until it fell apart.

But Cas, well, Cas had already fallen apart so he didn't have anything to lose. "Jack, we need you. _I_ need you. And the three of us are going to find a way out here, together." When Jack started to argue, he added, "What harm will it do to help us? Do you have some pressing engagement in the Empty that you failed to mention?"

Sam, unexpectedly, smirked. "True. If Dean were here, he'd be asking if you were late to a hair appointment or something."

Cas made a show of looking around, and imitated Dean's gruff voice. "What, you got somethin' better to do?"

They both laughed, or did what passed for laughing for either of them—Sam's pained chuckle, Cas's stilted smile. Jack bowed his head, inching closer to Sam, but didn't argue any further. He just looked sad.

Cas reached out and hugged him, just in case he didn't get another chance.

They were Winchesters, or at least part Winchesters. And Winchesters always found a way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, when things were simple.  
> look, I know this story is an absolute mess so if you clicked and kept reading, <3thank you so much.


	4. Chapter 4

Cas was sitting on the rise above the bunker's entrance when Dean found him. In the last two years, the fields hadn't changed much—still bare, still bordered by trees at a distance so far, even Cas's superior eyes had trouble seeing more than a single, black line. Obviously, the plans for a garden had never born fruit.

Cas could fix that, if he were so inclined. He knew how to coax life from the most barren of ground now, and he had nothing but time on his hands.

But he wasn't sure if he was ready.

Dean's hair was mussed, shirt unbuttoned over a plain t-shirt, and he smelled like a bar room floor. Cas couldn't remember if he'd been like this before, if this had been Dean and nobody had bothered to notice or if this was a new low. Then again, he wasn't sure if it was a low, either, or just a rough spot.

Dean sat next to him, dangling his legs over the door so he could drum his boot heels against the metal frame.

"Jack's, uh. He's cleaning." His smile was uncertain, and after barely a beat he drew a flask from his breast pocket and swigged it. He offered it to Cas.

Cas took it, startled when it actually burned. He spluttered, held up a hand when Dean tried to take the flask back, and drank again. This time, he kept it down. It didn't taste like the memory of alcohol, like the echo of what it should have been.

He was definitely a great deal more human than he'd been before leaving the bunker, then.

He passed the flask back to Dean. "I suppose he's also shaming you for two years of bad habits. Politely, of course."

"Always politely." Dean toasted him, the smile becoming a little more confident. "Say what you will about Lucifer's kid, but he's got great manners."

"I suspect he learned this from Sam, not you." Cas smiled back, liquor numbing his tongue. He was glad when Dean chuckled. Their interactions had been stilted since Jack returned, not directly because of Jack, but because of everything else. Because Cas wasn't sure how to talk to him. Because he didn't want Dean to think that this meant every other shitty thing he'd done was fine, but he also wanted to come back.

He wanted things to go back to what they'd been before, or as close as they could get. He wanted to see if they could resurrect the world the way they'd resurrected their son, because he'd had time to develop this theory and as much as he loved the dog, the plan demanded the involvement of beings with opposable thumbs. And he was lonely.

He'd come to earth because he was fascinated with people. He wanted to study them, strive with them, be a part of their messy, terrible, entrancing humanity. Isolating himself from his family was the opposite of that.

Dean set his flask aside. "I owe you an apology."

It was one of the last things Cas expected him to say. Still. "You do."

He'd folded his jacket next to him, but now he pulled it over his lap, in case this was one of those conversations that ended in both of them storming away from each other.

Dean exhaled. "You know, before Sam went and did what he did, we were barely talking. We'd say, you know, good morning and good night, but . . . we've been around together over thirty friggin' years, Cas. There's no small talk when you know someone that long."

Cas picked up the flask.

"And when we couldn't—when _I_ couldn't—talk about the big stuff, there was nothing left to discuss. But last week, when we were having breakfast, he looked across the table and it was like, like he was really _looking_ at me for the first time in a while." Dean clasped his hands in his lap, staring out across the field before bringing his gaze back to Cas. "He asked me why I'd given up. And you called it, man. You knew two years ago what Sam only figured out now."

Cas drank. His head was beginning to feel like it was squashed between two bigger heads, and he wasn't sure if he liked it or not. "Sam is also very good at pretending he doesn't know things you don't want him to know."

"That's true." Dean laced and unlaced his fingers. His feet were still beating patterns against the door, the _thump-thump-thump_ punctuating their conversation. "I just. I wish I could remember why I kept fighting so hard, for all those years."

Cas set the flask between them and put his hand on Dean's shoulder. "I always assumed it was genetic stubbornness."

That made Dean laugh. He let his head fall in Cas's direction, cheek brushing Cas's hand as he leaned over. His temple knocked awkwardly against Cas's jaw, and Cas dropped his hand, and then Dean's head was on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Dean said. "I can't promise anything great, but I'll try. Even if I don't always know why I'm trying."

"I . . . I'm also sorry," Cas said, surprised at how much he meant it. It had been too complicated before, for him to concede. It would have meant too much to acknowledge Dean was even a little bit right—it would have ruined him. But he was past that point now. "I never meant to make Mary's loss out to be less than Jack's. I never meant for my choices to hurt you or your family."

"Neither did I." Dean's voice was faint. "And I never meant for us to start thinking about shit like _your family_ and _my family_. I should have fought for Jack."

Cas put his hand on Dean's knee, hyperaware of Dean's subsequent flinch.

They stayed like that for a moment. Then Dean tapped the back of Cas's hand. "Personal space."

Cas withdrew, biting back a smile. It had been a while since Dean had turned to petty complaints to duck out of a heavy conversation—it was nice. It was their version of small talk, and sometimes that was what was needed. A signal that things were shifting, however slowly, back to normal.

"Plants are still growing." He clasped his hands around his jacket instead, and Dean straightened.

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. Plants are growing. The sun is rising and setting with regularity. The seasons have been changing." Cas looked at him. "This world is still alive, Dean. It may operate according to slightly different rules now, but it's still operating. It's still _growing_. We have a chance."

"To . . . what? Save everyone?" Dean frowned. He was still very close to Cas.

Cas leaned still closer, enjoying the way Dean stopped breathing for a telling second. "To plant a garden."

So they did.

They grew rosemary and lemons and pine trees and anything else Jack pointed to while they were flipping through the worn _Plants of North America_ tome they'd found in the library. Sam insisted on cataloging their progress, of course, and several hours that should have been spent doing actual work were spent writing about the work instead. He made all of them transcribe statements in a brand-new hunter's journal, which was less than brand-new by the time they were done with it.

"Some families have photo albums," Dean remarked, while Sam was settling it on the shelf next to the others, "and ours has handbooks of how to kill monsters and grow vegetables."

"What other skills do you need?" Sam shot back, adjusting the book until it leaned _just so._ He stepped back, looking to Cas for approval, and Cas nodded. The aesthetic was sufficient.

Jack rested his chin on Sam's shoulder. "I've always wanted to learn an instrument. It comes in handy in a lot of stories."

"Oh, wonderful." Dean rolled his eyes at Cas. "We've got a wannabe Orpheus."

"He learned from the best," Sam said, and Dean made a gagging noise that didn't quite drown out the laugh in his eyes. He was getting better. Not every day, not all the time, but that was okay. Cas had never asked for perfection.

Yesterday, Dean had eaten a whole tomato off the vine. Sam had staggered backward in only partly exaggerated shock, and for a single, glittering moment, the world had been perfect. Or as perfect as a world on life support could be.

The growing was helping Dean, which made Cas think the growing had to be helping everything.

"Dad used to play guitar," Dean said, in a voice that suggested he had pulled the memory out of a dozen he was eager to go back to forgetting. But he shared it nevertheless, and Cas loved him for that. "He knew, shit, like two songs. Four chords. He wasn't good."

Sam laughed, so Jack laughed. Cas stood as close to Dean as he was allowed.

"We should grow pumpkins in the fall," Dean said, this time only to Cas.

Cas inched still closer, pushing his limits. Pleased when their hands touched and Dean didn't pull away. "For pie?"

Dean smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _all done! TBH I'm not as happy with it as I could be but I've been sitting on this for a long dang time and I'm done with it. Sometimes it's like that. I'm done. I'm flinging it out into the world and never looking at it again. I'm continuing with this_ **thoughts at the end of the world** _collection but promise nothing as to content or quality._  
>  _Thank you so, so, so much for stopping by!_


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